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Ideas on how to make lighting worthwhile


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So at the moment, the only thing that lighting does is create a +15 decor buff. That's not bad considering their small power cost, but since paintings and statues let you easily reach high decor and don't have the disadvantage of producing heat, lights aren't very useful outside of making your base look nicer for yourself.
I have two ideas on how they could be improved. First of all, on top of increasing decor by +15, they could give dupes a minor stat increase, like maybe +2 to all stats or +1. Also, the efficiency of operating any machine could be made less efficient than it is right now by default, but made more efficient than it is right now when lighting is present. Maybe this could be achieved by making lighting give a +5 to tinkering, research and cooking (and any others that affect machines). These two changes would encourage players to put up lighting in their bases and to definitely put up lighting in places where duplicants work.
Lighting could also be an optional requirement for plants. As in, don't increase the amount of points needed for an excellent harvest but make lighting give harvest points. That way you could get an excellent harvest through using lighting even though one of the other requirements wasn't fulfilled. It could also give a higher productivity buff to algae terrariums, although does need a rebalance in general.
EDIT: Alternative idea, make it not affect the quality rating of the plants, but affect their growth speed.
Lastly, here are two ideas that @GabrialDestruir came up with after I suggested my ideas in the ONI Discord server.
When duplicants do things in the darkness, accidents could happen, such as burning their hands on a cooking station or making a mess in a toilet.
Also the decor of all decor buildings could be decreased by a factor of ten and lighting could increase it back up by a factor of ten, since dupes can't really look at them in the darkness.
What do you think of those ideas?

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I'd be wary of giving lights bonuses to all kinds of different things, which creates needless complexity in the skill system. The small decor bonus for a light can stay but IMHO, the two main changes that lights need to create an incentive to light up (most) of a base are:

  • A growth time reduction for plants. This has to be combined with a harvest point bonus, balanced so that light slightly contributes to a better harvest rating overall (can compensate for slightly fluctuating temperature for example) but not to the point where you can ignore one of the other conditions and still get perfect yield.
  • Have the light overlay affect duplicants separately from Decor. After being in darkness for too long, duplicants start gaining stress. Could be accompanied by corresponding traits that decrease the stress from being in darkness (nocturnal) or decrease the time before they become stressed. (diurnal?)

Could additionally be accompanied by a buildable Construction Lamp that can be thrown down in an excavation area far from base, needs no circuit connection but requires periodic manual cranking by a duplicant while it's turned on.

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  • Skill bonus sounds good
  • Harvest bonus for plants would need to be weaker than other current bonuses, because it's much easier to provide light than, say, fertilizer
  • Accidents idea sounds just plain bad, I don't see a way to salvage it
  • Decor reduction by huge factor would just make light mandatory. Factor of 1.5 or so would be manageable and actually make it a choice: get light or try to get the bonus by just getting more masterpieces

Some extra ideas:

  • Make critters fear light (not path through light tiles), to manage them more easily
  • Allow light to stack somewhat (say, square root) for purposes of decor and algae
  • Make climbing animations faster if from/to lit tile (you can see where you go)
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1 hour ago, Sevio said:

I'd be wary of giving lights bonuses to all kinds of different things, which creates needless complexity in the skill system. The small decor bonus for a light can stay but IMHO, the two main changes that lights need to create an incentive to light up (most) of a base are:

  • A growth time reduction for plants. This has to be combined with a harvest point bonus, balanced so that light slightly contributes to a better harvest rating overall (can compensate for slightly fluctuating temperature for example) but not to the point where you can ignore one of the other conditions and still get perfect yield.
  • Have the light overlay affect duplicants separately from Decor. After being in darkness for too long, duplicants start gaining stress. Could be accompanied by corresponding traits that decrease the stress from being in darkness (nocturnal) or decrease the time before they become stressed. (diurnal?)

Could additionally be accompanied by a buildable Construction Lamp that can be thrown down in an excavation area far from base, needs no circuit connection but requires periodic manual cranking by a duplicant while it's turned on.

I don't really like the idea of making a lack of lighting increase stress, it would make it too mandatory to use and it would just get too difficult to light up all the areas that your dupes are in. I think making it improve their productivity at machines just works way better and makes much more sense and a small boost to all stats makes it useful in other places too. I don't see how it would make the skill system needlessly complex.

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Adding decor to avoid stress with high level dupes is mandatory too. And duplicants handle going into low decor areas quite well, as long as they come back to high decor areas regularly. The stress from lighting would be balanced similarly. Just make sure the areas they spend a lot of time in or pass through often are lit and they'll be fine.

That said, I think the lighting radius could do with a little improvement for the floor lamps, or have a cheaper ceiling lamp with a wider arc for less tall rooms.

Stress is the thing in ONI that ties into most of a duplicants' needs, so setting a condition for light, as something that has its own dedicated overlay just like decor, power, liquid, gas and temperature is better to me than introducing power creep in a lot of other systems of the game. (skills and productivity with machines)

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20 minutes ago, Sevio said:

Adding decor to avoid stress with high level dupes is mandatory too. And duplicants handle going into low decor areas quite well, as long as they come back to high decor areas regularly. The stress from lighting would be balanced similarly. Just make sure the areas they spend a lot of time in or pass through often are lit and they'll be fine.

That said, I think the lighting radius could do with a little improvement for the floor lamps, or have a cheaper ceiling lamp with a wider arc for less tall rooms.

Stress is the thing in ONI that ties into most of a duplicants' needs, so setting a condition for light, as something that has its own dedicated overlay just like decor, power, liquid, gas and temperature is better to me than introducing power creep in a lot of other systems of the game. (skills and productivity with machines)

Lighting being a copy of the decor mechanic just feels weird and wrong, it would just be bad game design in my opinion if you had two types of decor that work almost exactly the same way. We already have so many factors that simply affects stress, it would be interesting to have one that doesn't and I think light would work much better if it was optional and not a requirement.
I think encouraging players to put up lights specifically in areas where duplicants work while also giving them a reason to put them in other parts of their base without forcing them to use them is better.

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Keep lighting the way it is but the decor radius of similar items shouldn't overlap. So 2 canvases within each other's radius shouldn't provide double decor. That way, things like lights and vases would be more important.

 

Or make a light specific penalty, like loss productivity (stat debuff) or stress increase, but allow machines to produce a little light. So there isn't an absolute need for lighting but the benefit increases when lighting is applied.

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I do believe that lighting needs an overhaul as well. Plant effects is a given. I believe that right now there simply is not enough to encourage players to actively use lighting beyond aesthetics and then dealing with the heat that light produces as a byproduct, similar to how there is absolutely no reason to use fridges currently when sterile environments are just as effective and easier to manage than temperature.

As for the stat increases and risk of mistakes, right now it would be significantly more impactful than I think we would want, given that duplicant levels and stats are capped for now. I do agree that the risk of making mistakes in the dark is potentially a headache that would cause too much strife if it happened too often. There has to be extreme care in how difficult the early game is made, when you'll be doing most everything in the dark. If and when they begin to add fire and other mechanics, perhaps adding the ability to place torches that require fuel as a non-electric counterpart to lights that still produces heat, maybe then. But again goes back to making the early game more difficult. There's a delicate balance right now in how quickly colonies begin to experience heat issues so players have time to learn the mechanics necessary to combat them and research what they need to do so.

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44 minutes ago, Michi01 said:

Lighting being a copy of the decor mechanic just feels weird and wrong

You could make it a condition for being able to experience (positive) decor. Can't see those great paintings and well made sculptures if it's dark. But affecting stress directly is also justifiable since nobody likes having to work in the dark but also because light on its own affects mood in reality. Winter depression due to lack of light is a thing in northern countries.

1 hour ago, Michi01 said:

I think light would work much better if it was optional and not a requirement.

And to accomplish that you want to make light give only mild bonuses, but lack of it no downsides. Not every incentive in a game with a survival element can be a bonus, sometimes you have to have a bad effect that needs to be avoided as well. Duplicants randomly failing at tasks or just being slower at everything could be an alternative bad effect to stress but that would probably frustrate players more.

Keep in mind I'm not advocating that duplicants flip out as soon as they step outside a light radius, the portal you start at emits light, duplicants start with a New Hope buff and electricity and lamps are available without any research at all. As a further incentive to not only provide your duplicants with adequate lighting but plenty of lighting, duplicants that experience very little darkness over the course of a cycle could experience a stress reduction.

Stepping away from the no light = stress idea, here's another thing that light could affect:

Combat aspects in the game are quite underdeveloped, but when/if actual hostile creatures are added, light could repel them, to a degree.

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51 minutes ago, RemyG said:

As for the stat increases [...], right now it would be significantly more impactful than I think we would want, given that duplicant levels and stats are capped for now.

I feel like +1 or +2 to all stats won't make a big difference while still kind of being worthwhile.
While I'm not sure about that though, I think improved productivity while working at machines will be balanced. As I said, they could make using machines without lights less efficient than it is at the moment and make it a bit more efficient than it is now if you use lights.

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11 minutes ago, Sevio said:

You could make it a condition for being able to experience (positive) decor. Can't see those great paintings and well made sculptures if it's dark. But affecting stress directly is also justifiable since nobody likes having to work in the dark but also because light on its own affects mood in reality. Winter depression due to lack of light is a thing in northern countries.

That first idea actually already was in my original post. About your second point, my argument wasn't about realism, it was that simply copying the decor mechanic and making a second version of it would be boring game design.
 

 

11 minutes ago, Sevio said:

And to accomplish that you want to make light give only mild bonuses, but lack of it no downsides. Not every incentive in a game with a survival element can be a bonus, sometimes you have to have a bad effect that needs to be avoided as well. Duplicants randomly failing at tasks or just being slower at everything could be an alternative bad effect to stress but that would probably frustrate players more.

Keep in mind I'm not advocating that duplicants flip out as soon as they step outside a light radius, the portal you start at emits light, duplicants start with a New Hope buff and electricity and lamps are available without any research at all. As a further incentive to not only provide your duplicants with adequate lighting but plenty of lighting, duplicants that experience very little darkness over the course of a cycle could experience a stress reduction.

Stepping away from the no light = stress idea, here's another thing that light could affect:

Combat aspects in the game are quite underdeveloped, but when/if actual hostile creatures are added, light could repel them, to a degree.

I think you didn't quite understand my suggestion. My main point is that working at machines should be less efficient in the darkness, maybe even inefficient, while using lighting makes it slightly more efficient than it is right now (or maybe even just brings it back up to the normal level). Making it give minor increases to all stats is just to also give it a use outside of that. I think at least the part of machines would work quite well.
Also I like your idea about repeling creatures with light.

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I think the idea of attaching lighting to most activities in some way feels right. I mean...I can walk around my house with no light, but I'll run into something occasionally.
Presumably enclosed asteroids don't have moonlight.

In exchange, yea, lighting should be widened and its visual effect strengthened. Particularly for the printer. Darken the natural light level in response.
Maybe let dupes craft flashlights at some tech level; less effect but good for exploration.
I'd really like to see personal equipment/maneuverability in general expanded on.

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4 hours ago, Pyr0mrcow said:

Maybe let dupes craft flashlights at some tech level; less effect but good for exploration.

Dupe "multitool" (the thing they use for most jobs) produces light when used. You can see it on light overlay when a dupe is digging.

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I feel something closer to the night time graphical filter should be in effect in unlit areas. Giving the player more awareness of lighting. The base without lights looks bright enough so from the players point of view light management has no benefit.

No need to go pitch black like Don't Starve but right now its bright or brighter.

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In the 'Rhymes With Klei' stream from yesterday, they said that plants and farming is getting a big re-work in the next update.  Among other things, it sounds like *some* plants will now *require* light, while others (mushrooms, at least) will require darkness.  So it sounds like they are indeed going to be bringing in light as a crop-affecting mechanic. 

Aside from plants, I wholeheartedly agree with this:

On 6/29/2017 at 8:07 AM, ScottFree said:

Keep lighting the way it is but the decor radius of similar items shouldn't overlap. So 2 canvases within each other's radius shouldn't provide double decor. That way, things like lights and vases would be more important.

I suggested this a long time ago.  Decor bonuses should have classes, and should not stack within the same class.  So art, plants, lighting, music, tiles/machines all could be separate decor modifiers, imo.  Negative modifiers could still stack though.  Or at least the 'clutter' modifier, which would have to stack by nature.

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